Wednesday, January 20, 2010

It’s Like the OSR Secret Handshake

Although my pursuit of these was not tenacious and the amount of cash I was willing to spend was set, I’ve nevertheless finally added a complete white box set to my library.

The box has been crunched but the books are all in good condition with only slight staple rust and two penciled-in additions to the text (apparently a previous owner thought clerics got off too easy experience-wise once they hit curate). It’s a sixth printing but I cannot complain too much considering I didn’t have to pay a cent more than I budgeted myself for the set and even the reference sheets are included.

I’ve had the .PDF versions of the books for some time, but they fail in comparison to being able to handle the LBBs in physical form. As someone whose career revolves around the preservation of materials with intrinsic historical value, finally having a set of these books means a great deal to me—not only because I know that at least one set will remain in excellent care but also because ownership of one of these boxes is like the OSR’s secret handshake that grants entrance into some bizarre inner cabal of owners.

Now I'm just waiting on a trio of old school d20s (numbered 0-9 twice) and a set of Zochi high precision, uninked dice coming later this week. I guess it's 1974 again at my house this week. Good stuff indeed.

Who's to Blame

Despite having never been a professional adventurer, Michael Curtis has nonetheless deciphered cryptic writings, handled ancient maps and texts, ridden both a camel and an elephant, fallen off a mountain, participated in a mystical rite, and discovered the resting places of lost treasures. He can be contacted at poleandrope @ gmaildotcom